You'll Know
by Twirl22
Summary: A RS slash fic with no explicit scenes. A short one-off fic set during GoF.


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A short Remus/Sirius slash fic, no explicit content. Set in the time period of GoF, where Sirius is on the run. Please leave feedback!

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You'll Know

Sirius couldn't help looking closely at his companion's face as he slept peacefully next to him in the small bed. It was stiflingly hot, the covers crumpled on the floor in a messy heap. The faint snores coming from the slightly opened mouth reassured Sirius, and he watched the shallow fall and rise of his friend's chest. He deserved better than to be lying next to Sirius Black. He no longer even knew where they were, or cared too much either. All he knew was that they were running. Running away from the Dementors. Running from death. From fear. From prejudices, from the past, from hopeless memories, from truth. As they lay in the cramped room, their bed more of a moth-eaten mattress than anything else, Sirius wished more than anything that he wasn't running. Especially not with someone as kind hearted, someone as brave and someone as strong as Remus Lupin.

Sirius' hand trailed towards Remus' cheek and lightly brushed aside a single hair that lay there. Remus stirred a little, but did not open his eyes. Sirius smiled gently. He lay on his side, facing Lupin and pushed his hand through his own matted hair. Being here with Remus made him the happiest he had felt in such a long time. But something else weighed heavy in his stomach, a feeling that he shouldn't be this happy and that Remus shouldn't be with him. Not now. Not like this.

There was no one in the world who Sirius would rather be with than Remus Lupin. Their loyalty to each other had developed into something stronger than Sirius had imagined possible. Sirius loved everything about the aging ex-professor, from his gentle demeanour, to his intelligence and dry wit, to his scarred skin and his greying hair. They were no longer cheerful schoolboys, with bright smiles, boyishly tousled hair and reddened wind-whipped cheeks. Their innocence was something of a memory, something that Sirius had to struggle to even convince himself that he once possessed. But sometimes, he felt a small tingle of how he was when nothing mattered except catching Snitches, attracting girls and sneaking around Hogwarts at night time when he was with Remus. They both now had changed faces, changed bodies, and changed mannerisms.... all for the worse at first glance. But as Sirius gently lay his head against Remus' chest, he knew that none of that mattered anymore.

Despite how Remus was the only person who could allow Sirius to look back into his past and try to rescue the happy times, he didn't want Remus to have to be with him. Sirius knew that his lover would give him everything and had sacrificed his own life and future to stay with him. But Sirius felt undeserving of such commitment. He would die for Remus in an instant, but could not see why on earth Lupin would feel the same. Sirius could offer him no sort of normal life, no promise of tranquillity or peace. They had no money, no home and no family excluding Harry. No one even knew of their true relationship. Somehow, the secret nature of how they felt about each other only served to make Sirius feel like a failure.

They had not started any sort of a relationship until they were seventeen and in their last year at Hogwarts. Arrogant, cocky young Sirius had his fair share of girlfriends and boyfriends while Remus was a loner, completely naive about love and intimacy. That wasn't because no one wanted to be with him, or found him dull, but because Remus never allowed himself to get too attached to outsiders. He had once told Sirius that his realisation that James, Sirius and Peter had accepted him was one of the most unsettling experiences of his life. Looking back, Sirius realised his feelings must have started at the time he found Remus was a werewolf. He remembered his rage about discovering the truth, not because his friend was in fact part-human, but because Sirius had been lied to. That was something that Sirius' friends could not do to him, not when his own family lied, cheated and schemed their way through life. It was also the first instance that he had failed Lupin, Sirius recognised sadly. There should never have been any need for the secrecy. Sirius knew that now Remus trusted him implicitly, but that had not always been the case.

The fact that Remus was a werewolf didn't change their friendship. Sirius had been uncertain first, but quickly realised that the wolf and his friend were not the same person. He trained to be an Animagus with James and Peter, because he wanted to do something, anything, to try and help. As Sirius slowly fell in love with Remus, the werewolf issue had not been an important factor for Sirius, although it was for Moony of course. He had long accepted that Remus was different, but not in a way which made him inferior in Sirius' eyes. He was still the same good natured Remus J Lupin, who beat him ruthlessly at chess, managed to do all the hard work creating the Marauders' Map and was the only one of the gang to be remotely good at Potions.

Their relationship had no grandiose start, no love at first sight nonsense or romantic courtship. Sirius didn't really know how it happened, it seemed that natural. He could remember their first kiss though. Remus was feeling ill the night after his transformation, and Sirius helped him complete some Potions work. There came a point where Sirius could no longer deny that the closeness of being with someone who he deeply cared about was what he really wanted. And it coincided with the point that Remus managed to abandon his fear of starting something that would end in disaster through his own insecurities. Sirius lifted his cheek from Remus' chest and brushed his lips softly against Lupin's, the same way he had done all those years ago. His heart still beat quicker as he did it, which told Sirius that it all still meant as much as it did then. So much of him had withered away at Azkaban. Knowing that he could still feel something so simple and yet so meaningful reminded Sirius that he was still alive. He could learn to cast spells again and hold a knife and fork. Sirius could only wonder how terrifying it would be if he had to learn how to feel emotion again. That was something that Remus managed to induce in him from the moment they met in the Shrieking Shack after his escape from prison.

The thought of revenge, of catching Peter Pettigrew and destroying him mercilessly had helped to keep Sirius focused and sane during his incarceration, but blind hatred alone was not enough to keep him in such a good state in comparison to other prisoners. Everyone, without exception hated someone else in Azkaban. Everyone blamed someone else for them being inside the four walls, but that drive was not powerful enough for real survival to occur. Sirius had often thought of Remus as well. Maybe that was what made him different to all the other supposed Death Eaters. He had memories of someone he loved, someone who he still cared for above his own needs. Of course the Dementors sucked out all of his happy thoughts, so much so that he could no longer bear to think of what he had lost. But Remus was something sacred, something that Sirius would not allow to be taken away from his that easily. He remembered seeing Remus' face for the first time in twelve years and realising that Remus blamed him like everyone else for James and Lily's deaths.

It was something that he didn't want to think about, whether or not Remus had hated him for what he was accused of doing. Remus had admitted to him that he forced himself not to remember the happy memories he had of them together. Remus had the job of grieving the loss of two of his best friends and then having his lover accused of their murder. At first Sirius thought that Remus had not fought hard enough, had accepted far too quickly that Sirius was capable of such a terrible murder and betrayal.

But then he knew what Remus was afraid of most, excluding the power of the moon. It was of rejection. Of course, after growing up and finding out the hard way that rejection was an inevitable part of life for a werewolf, Remus no longer feared it as such. Through maturity, he realised that rejection was not something he could control. But as Remus had eventually confided in Sirius, it was easier to believe that Sirius had always been evil and that their relationship had been false from the start, rather than trying to comprehend the possibility that Sirius had loved him at some point, but chosen jealousy and murder over him.

Remus stirred again and opened his hazel coloured eyes sleepily.

"Morning Padfoot," he whispered, rolling over onto his side so he was also facing Sirius. His arm fell loosely over Sirius' left hip.

"Morning Moony," smiled Sirius, his gaze falling again onto Lupin's tanned, lined face.

Remus sighed contentedly and closed his eyes again. Sirius frowned and tried not to think about things too much. Remus shouldn't sound so relaxed. It wasn't fair; he shouldn't have to endure this life of secrecy at all, never mind be happy about it. It might be easier for Sirius to cope if Remus let him feel guilty about the fact they needed to doss around in places like this. Of course, he felt guilty inside, but could not display it, as Remus just wanted to make the best out of a bad situation.

They were both silent for a long time. Sirius kissed Remus' forehead lightly, his eyes closed tightly. Remus opened his.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

Sirius didn't reply for a few moments.

"You," he said finally. "I'm still trying to work out why you're here with me."

Remus laughed quietly and slid his hand up and down Sirius' side comfortingly. Sirius smiled too, noticing just how beautiful he really was, even though he had scratches all across his nose from when he had transformed into a werewolf three nights before. None of the werewolf thing mattered at all in the grand scheme of things.

"I thought you'd have worked it out by now," he answered softly. "What a stupid thing to say."

"You know... if you decide to leave me I'll understand," said Sirius seriously. "I don't want you here Moony. Not because I don't care about you... because you deserve better than travelling the world on a hippogriff, worrying if Dementors are ten paces behind."

Remus no longer looked so serene. "If you really, really want me to leave, then I will. But I don't want to Sirius. Not one bit. Why won't you accept that I'm happy here with you?"

"Because you can't be," replied Sirius, his tone rougher than before. Remus turned his head a little towards the pillow and Sirius sighed, putting his hand on top of Remus' hand that still rested on his hip.

Remus breathed heavily though his nose. "Don't tell me how to feel Siri. Because I want to be at your side. If you're trying to tell me that's not what you want anymore, then just do it. I'm not the same seventeen year old who's afraid of you telling me that you don't want this relationship."

"You know that I love you," muttered Sirius, pulling his body closer to Remus'. "I just don't want you to be unhappy."

"I'm not unhappy," smiled Remus, kissing Sirius lingeringly. "You think I don't have the same worries? You wonder what on earth I'm doing with the Dementors' number one target, and I wonder what you're doing with a werewolf. Stop thinking.... just let yourself be happy Sirius."

"All right," agreed Sirius, murmuring from beneath Remus' lips. He put his hand behind Moony's head and kissed him again, letting his worries dissolve for the time being. Remus rolled over onto his back and let Sirius move on top of him. He saw the escaped prisoner's tattoos, the ugly, permanent reminders of his wrongful imprisonment. The marks blemished his otherwise perfect skin in the same way that the deep scars and bite marks etched deep into Remus' own skin. At first Sirius had not been keen for Remus to see them, but Moony could look at the without any loathing or disgust because they were a part of Sirius now. And nothing so trivial as a few scars and ink stains made any difference to the way he felt.

Just as Remus' hand travelled down to the small of Sirius' perspiring back, a fluttering bird came in from the open window to their right. It perched at the end of the mattress and extended its small leg for one of them to detach the message from. Sirius slid of Remus' stomach and pulled the parchment loose. The bird did not stop to wait for a reply, just flew away straight away.

Sirius unfurled it carefully.

"It's from Dumbledore," he read, frowning slightly. "I'll read it out."

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S,

I hope you are keeping well. I obviously cannot divulge as much as I would like to in this message, but I'm sure you will get the gist of it.

As I have previously mentioned to you, I am about to set up that society. You of course shall be a very special member, along with a few others, such as insiders, outsiders, marauders and a few more. A centre is what is needed though, and I was hoping that was where you could offer your services. I hear home is where the heart is.

A

Sirius groaned and set the parchment alive with a flick of his hand.

"He wants me to let him use my house for the headquarters of this Order he's setting up," he sighed, drawing his knees up to his chin.

"I've never been there," said Remus thoughtfully. "I suppose it's derelict now?"

"Yeah," replied Sirius darkly. "And there's a reason why I've never invited you there. I hate the place. Full of dark magic, that stupid house elf, Kreacher, and my beloved mother, forever accessible in that damned portrait. It would be a horrible place for the headquarters to be. I mean, it's large enough... just really uncomfortable."

"What are you going to tell him?" asked Remus, sliding nearer to Sirius.

Sirius shrugged. "If Dumbledore wants the place, he can have it. It's no use to me. Actually..." he smirked wryly. "I'm sure my mother will love the fact that her precious house will be turned over for fighting the dark. The place will be filled with freaks and mudblood scum as well!" he laughed, putting on a high pitched, screechy voice at the end.

Remus laughed too. "You should feel good that he's asked you to do this. It's a huge responsibility."

Sirius didn't reply. "What's going to happen with us?" he asked suddenly. "Loads of people will be there... the Weasleys, probably ones like old Mad Eye.... maybe even Harry." He lifted his head up and faced Remus. "I'm not sure how people would react."

Remus was quiet for a moment, and then sighed loudly. "I don't think we should let it get out. I mean, no one knows we're together now... it's important that we stay focused on any tasks that Dumbledore gives us and you need to get to know Harry better too. Finding out you're shacked up with one of his old male professors probably won't endear you to him at first."

"I guess so," replied Sirius.

Remus lay back down again on the bed, and motioned for Sirius to do the same. He did, and rested his head on his chest again.

"We've still got a few more days," he reasoned. "Then we should start making our way back to London."

Sirius closed his eyes and concentrated on listening to Remus' heartbeat.

"It won't happen like it did last time," he muttered in a rather defiant tone. "I'm not going to leave you again Moony. And if anything happens... you know, don't you? You know how it really is this time. You'll know different things to Harry, to Dumbledore and... if the Dementors do get me in this war, or anyone else does, you'll know that everything...everything...."

Sirius let out a sigh of frustration. "I can't find a way to say what I want to say Moony. I guess what I mean is, you'll know..."

"I'll know that you were the same person I fell in love with when I was seventeen," whispered Remus. "I'll know you're no murderer, no traitor and you didn't abandon me."

Sirius smiled and buried his face into Remus' chest harder. "Yeah," he said. "You'll know."

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End file.
